


strange chances

by cosmicocean



Series: the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Han Solo Lives, Rey Skywalker, mara jade is awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6971206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicocean/pseuds/cosmicocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"many are the strange chances of life."</p><p>After Rey crash lands on a swamp planet during a mission for the Resistance, she hires a smuggler named Jade to take her back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strange chances

“Does any Resistance mission go smoothly?” Rey asks the tiny holoprojected version of her aunt in her palm. “Or does the galaxy find a way to kriff it up at every possible moment?”

She hears a snort away from the projector that she would have known was her uncle even if Leia hadn’t done a side-eye. “You’re on an official Resistance transmission, Rey.”

Rey smells like soot, there’s mud in her hair, and her body still aches from the emergency crash into the swamp. “Sorry. Does the galaxy find a way to kriff it up at every possible moment, _General?_ ”

Her uncle cackles. Leia looks like she’d dearly enjoy strangling both of them for a moment, then sighs. “Yes. Usually.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you told me that before I signed up, that saved a _lot_ of time.”

Han sticks his head in the view of the holoprojector. “For the record, you get this attitude from your aunt’s side of the family.”

Leia calmly reaches out with one hand and shoves his head away. “Can you still complete the mission?”

Rey sighs, undoing her hair as she looks mournfully at the X-Wing behind her. “The ship’s trashed, she won’t fly again. But I got my bag out with my equipment. I have my water filter and my rations and my saber. And I still have the data stick. There’s a town not far from here. I can camp out here for the night and get a ship out tomorrow.”

“All right. Keep us updated.”

“Yes, General.”

Leia’s face softens. “Take care of yourself, Rey. Your father’s out looking at the X-Wings with Poe, we didn’t let him know about your mission report yet, but he’d say the same.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Han shouts. Leia rolls her eyes.

“That, too.”

Rey smiles. “I promise, Auntie. I promise, Uncle.”

There’s a throaty growl from Chewbacca somewhere.

“You too, Uncle.”

Rey closes her hand around the holoprojector and watches the image fizzle out. She sighs and starts setting up camp for the night.

 

It started so well, a day ago.

“People who did my hair keep surprising me,” Rey observes as Luke scrutinizes his work, an elegant ribbon like style held up and together by many ties. “First Han, now you.”

Luke scoffs. “Please. I am an artist, whereas compared to your uncle it was like he had never picked up a paintbrush before.”

Rey giggles. It’s been a month now and she is slipping slowly but easily into a comfortable relationship with her father, one that is mentor like and parent like and teasing all at once. 

“Hey,” Han snaps from the doorway. “Don’t let your father fool you, kid. The man does his sister’s hair during the Rebellion when she needs a hand, he thinks he’s the greatest hairdresser or something.”

“I did her mother’s hair as well, I’ll have you know.”

“You both do fine jobs,” Rey promises them. It’s become easier to pretend Luke’s mentions of her mother like they were never there. She’s still too uncertain to ask him outright any direct questions yet, so she glosses over them when he makes them and hoards the little scraps of information she learns to herself. Her mother’s name was Mara. She had red hair. Rey is better at Force meditation than she was. She couldn’t draw very well. Luke did her hair.

“But we all know mine is better than Han’s.”

Han’s eyes narrow. “Don’t make me toss you out an airlock, kid.”

Luke grins. “Good luck.”

“Children, I don’t play favorites.” Rey stands. “Thank you for doing my hair, Papa.” She kisses Luke’s cheek. “And thank you for the sarcastic comments, Uncle.” She kisses Han’s cheek, too.

“Han’s comments are a tenth-credit a dozen,” Luke says loftily. “My skills, however, are priceless and memory building.”

“Enough, you two.” Leia strides in, neatly cutting through Luke and Han’s banthashit. “Rey, you know what you’re supposed to do?”

Rey nods. “My name is Breha Whitsun. I joined the Resistance after the Hosnian system was destroyed.” It’s entirely plausible- there was a surge of people joining after the Starkiller’s destruction of innocent worlds. “I’m being sent to Pvio to get information from Fyrough Erte about the latest Star Destroyer that the First Order is building. My mother was Alderaanian, my father from Tatooine.”

It could be true, for all she knows. Her father is certainly of Tatooine and he had let it slip once that they were never sure what planet her mother had originated from, only that she ended up being raised on Coruscant. 

“Good.” Leia smiles at her kindly. “You’ll do just fine, Rey.”

“Thank you, Aunt Leia.”

She gives her father a hug, and then her aunt and her uncle, and she sets out to find the last three people she needs to say goodbye to before she sets out. She finds one of them almost immediately.

“I wanna come,” BB-8 sulks. Rey kneels down.

“I know you do, BB-8. But it’s going to be a very simple mission. I don’t need anyone but me on it.”

“I still don’t like it.” 

Rey kisses the top of BB-8’s dome. “You can keep an eye on Poe and Finn for me, all right? Make sure they don’t get into trouble.”

“All they’re _good_ at is getting into trouble.”

“Then you’ll have plenty to do, won’t you?” She stands, her black almost poncho-like cloak billowing slightly. “May the Force be with you, BB-8.”

“May the Force be with you, Rey.”

“Are you turning my droid against me?”

Rey looks up to see Poe approaching, Finn at his side. 

“Of course. We’re plotting.”

“I’ll be sure to have my eye out for nefarious deeds.” Poe lifts Rey slightly when he hugs her. “Fly well.”

“Fly well”, Rey has recently learned, is the pilot’s equivalent of “may the Force be with you”. “Fly well, Poe Dameron.”

“If you do out there,” Finn tells her seriously. “I will never forgive you.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll keep it in mind, Mr. Big Deal.”

Finn frowns. “I can’t believe Solo told you about that.”

“I can’t believe you _said_ that to Solo.” She kisses his cheek. “Keep an eye on the three of them, you two. They all like you.”

“We will.”

 

Hell, the _mission_ had gone well enough. Her cover had been flawless on Pvio and she’d gotten the data stick she needed. However, the First Order had heard a Resistance member was flying and shot her down. She’d only just managed to crash land. 

Now she’s on Liri, a godforsaken swamp planet, with no ship.

 

Rey sighs, washing her hair out and carefully tying it into a long ponytail with several hair ties carefully parsed out leftover from the way her father did it. It’s morning and she wasn’t eaten by strange swamp creatures, which is honestly starting to feel like more than she should have asked for in the first place. She hefts her bags, and starts for the lights she’d seen in the distance when she’d landed.

The town isn’t as far as she’d worried it would be and the large saloon within reminds her of Niima Outpost in an oddly comforting way. The roughness, the people bent over their drinks. It’s almost like her old home.

She approaches the bartender and dumps a few credits on the bar.

“Most trustworthy pilot here,” she says. “I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying. Ten more if you’re not.”

The pilot studies her. “Redhead,” he says finally. “In the back.”

The man is telling the truth, so Rey drops ten more credits and quietly slips through to the back.

A woman with silver-streaked red hair braided down and back of the middle of her head to hang in a loose ponytail is reading a book on the history of the First Order, other arm dangling lazily over the back of her chair. Her many buttoned brown trench coat is open to reveal, on the belt that frames an oval around her midriff between her white shirt and black shirt to reveal her stomach, a blaster strapped securely. Rey sits across from her.

“You think this volume’d be shorter than it is,” the woman says without looking up. “The Empire was around for longer and did much worse.”

Rey raises an eyebrow. “The First Order destroyed the Hosnian system.”

The woman smirks slightly. “You weren’t there, kid.” The woman closes the book and looks up at her. “And how exactly may I help you?”

The second her eyes meet Rey’s, Rey trusts the woman. She can’t explain it. She gets the strange tingle in her chest she has to come to associate with the Force, when it promises her _yes, this is good, this will be fine._

“I need passage to Endor.” There’s a small port there. She can radio the Resistance and someone can come and get her from there. “Need to get there quickly and quietly with no First Order entanglements.”

“That’s the expensive part, isn’t it?” 

“I can give you a thousand. Endor’s not a long jump from here, that’s more than enough.” Leia had give her three thousand in case of an emergency. Rey feels like this may qualify.

“A thousand, huh?” The woman tilts her head, then nods. “Fine. We leave in two hours.” 

“Agreed.” She holds out her hand. “Breha.”

The woman shakes it. “Jade.” When she leans forwards to do so, her coat shifts, and Rey sees a lightsaber hanging from her belt. She says nothing, thinking of the saber in her own bag and the promise of trust the Force has given her.

 

Jade’s ship is beat all to hell.

“It’s very nice,” Rey tells her. Jade snorts.

“No, it’s not.”

“No, it’s not. But I’ve flown worse.”

Jade flips some switches in the cockpit. “A pilot, are you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jade swivels in her seat. “It’ll take about twelve hours to make it to Endor. Make yourself comfortable.”

Rey treads into the ship, her brown skirt fluttering slightly around her ankles. There’s nothing personal about the ship, but it feels lived in. She guesses Jade’s had it for a while. She sits down at the small gaming table and leans back, waiting. 

After the jump to lightspeed, Jade enters and sits across from her.

“So,” she drawls. “Why exactly do you want to avoid the First Order?”

“Why does a smuggler have a lightsaber hilt on her belt?” Rey shoots back. “We all have secrets.”

Jade transitions from briefly surprised to amused. “I’m not a Sith Lord.”

Her father had told her what that meant. It was a Dark Side user like Kylo Ren. “Good.”

“Kind of important for me to know the answer to my question, though.”

“I have places to be and I don’t need the First Order getting in my way on my way there.”

Jade studies her, face softening slightly. “How old are you, Breha?”

Rey sets her jaw. “Old enough.”

She nods slightly. “So seventeen, eighteen?”

Rey frowns. “Nineteen.”

“My mistake.” She shrugs. “Still pretty young to join the Resistance.”

Her stomach swoops. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve been around a long time and seen a lot, kid. I know what it’s like when someone’s running _to_ something and not away from it.”

Rey looks at her warily, trying to make the way her hand’s moved to her bag casual. Jade snorts.

“I’m not gonna turn you in.” Her face twists. “Believe me, I have no love for the First Order.”

Rey bites the inside of her lip, than gives up. “Why don’t you join the Resistance?”

Jade shakes her head. “The Resistance won’t give me back my husband or my child. The best thing to do in this rotten galaxy is to take care of yourself.”

Rey shakes her head. “I can’t believe that.”

Jade smiles faintly. “I was like you once. I believed in fighting back.” Jade shakes her head. “Won’t do me any good now. You should probably rest, kid. Got a long flight.”

Rey hesitates, then nods. She curls her feet under her and closes her eyes. Eventually her breathing steadies, and she is almost to sleep, when-

A sigh, followed by a murmur.

“Mara, what have you gotten yourself into?”

Footsteps head off to the cockpit. Rey stays perfectly still.

_Mara_.

She’d thought Jade might be a Jedi. But this…

_Red hair_ , her father had said.

_My husband or my child,_ Jade had said. 

She’s wide awake now.

 

Rey wonders if Jade is a middle name or a maiden name. _Mara Jade Skywalker_. It sounds nice.

What does Rey say? _How_ does Rey say it? How do you even go about saying _hello, it’s your daughter, the one you thought you’d never see again, I just ran into you again and thought you might like to reconnect?_

She stands up after a little while and heads into the cockpit.

“How did you get your lightsaber?” she asks Jade.

Jade gives her an unimpressed look. “I’m not converting to your revolution.”

“I’m not asking you too, I just.” She shuffles a little. “I’m training to be a Jedi. I thought it might be nice to talk to someone else who has a saber.”

Jade looks startled. “You’re training to be a Jedi?”

She nods. Jade sighs.

“I built it,” she says, almost grudgingly. “Myself, when I was a younger woman.”

Rey draws her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. “Tell me about it.”

Jade sighs. “I used to be… not so great of a person. It wasn’t my fault, I realized eventually. I had been molded into it. But I still did some bad things, and I was still good at doing them. The first time I met my husband, I’d tried to kill him.”

“You did?”

Jade seems vaguely embarrassed. “Yes.”

“No, I like it! You fell in love in the end. That’s sweet.”

Jade’s embarrassment becomes less vague. “I suppose so.” She clears her throat. “He forgave me eventually, of course. He was a good man. The best I ever knew.” She returns her attention to Rey. “Is Organa teaching you?”

Rey blinks. “You know Leia?”

“My husband spoke of her. He said she was a good woman.”

Rey grins then, genuine. “She is.”

“How’s your training going?”

“My master says I’m powerful, I just don’t know how to use it yet. I’m good at meditation, though?”

“Are you? Good for you. I’m terrible at it. I don’t like the sitting still of it. What does your family think of this?”

Rey feels her smile vanish. “My family left me when I was a child.”

Jade’s face transforms into sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s…” Rey picks at the hem of her cloak. “I’m coming to terms with it. They thought it was for the best, even if it wasn’t. And I’m trying to forgive them for that.”

Jade’s quiet for a moment. “My child would be about the same age as you,” she murmurs finally. 

Rey looks up and meets Jade’s suddenly honest eyes. _Now is the time,_ she thinks. _Now, do it_ and she opens her mouth-

Something starts beeping on the console and Jade turns to it. She swears under her breath.

“What is it?”

“We’ve got company on the planet’s surface. If I don’t land there they’ll know something suspicious.” Jade looks at her speculatively. “Can you hide, kid?”

 

Rey hides in the cramped underbelly of the ship only for as long as she can hear Jade’s footsteps click down the ramp. Then she pulls the lever that she knows is there to release stolen goods into space if necessary and lands onto the ground quietly. She climbs up the ship until she is flat on the top, watching in silence as the rain in the night patters down on her back. What she sees makes her stomach churn.

Seven stormtroopers, headed by a figure in chrome armor with an asymmetrical cape. Rey’s never met her in person, but she knows who it must be from Finn’s descriptions: Captain Phasma.

“What can I help you with?” Jade calls, her red streaked hair standing out in the night. “Only you seem to be at my landing spot.”

Phasma approaches her. “Captain Jade,” she says coolly, loudly enough for Rey to hear. “We heard that you departed from Liri with a passenger. A girl. She would have given you the name Breha Whitsun.”

Jade shrugs. “You heard wrong. Never met a girl by that name.”

Phasma slowly circles Jade. “The name she would have given you would have been incorrect,” she intones, predatory. “She is a member of the Resistance.”

“I don’t tangle with the Resistance, ma’am.”

“Her name,” Phasma says, like she’s going in for the knife to the ribs. “Was in reality Rey. Her father’s name is Luke Skywalker.”

Rey watches Jade’s hand twitch a minuscule amount.

“You took up with Skywalker for a time, didn’t you?”

“A dalliance.” Jade’s voice is impassive.

“The word is that you were even married for a time.”

“I’m not sure where you’re getting your information, Captain, it seems grossly incorrect.”

Phasma tilts her head, then takes Jade’s lightsaber from her belt. “We’ll be taking you in for questioning.” She gestures at her stormtroopers. “Search her vessel.”

The lightsaber flies out of Phasma’s hand and into Rey’s as she stands atop the ship, igniting her own saber. “Captain Phasma!” she shouts as thunder and lightning play behind her. All the stormtroopers instantly raise their blasters and in the crackle of the lightning Rey can see Jade’s face, startled and perhaps a little hopeful. “My name is Rey Skywalker Solo of the Resistance, and that woman-“ she points with her glowing blue blade. “Is under my protection.”

There’s a silence and Rey thinks Phasma might be smiling.

“If you come with us willingly,” Phasma says. “Your mother will not be harmed.”

Rey grins herself then, feels the savage twist of her face like it was always there.

“I somehow sense, Captain,” she replies. “That my mother will not be harmed if she does not wish it to be so.”

“Fire on Skywalker,” Phasma instructs. Rey deflects the bolts that come flying at her with her saber and vaults off of Jade’s ship, somersaulting and dropping Jade’s into her hand neatly. Jade lights up her blade, a rich purple, and stands at the ready.

Between the two of them, the stormtroopers are no match, being taken down swiftly and efficiently until only Phasma is left. Rey knocks off Phasma’s helmet with a well placed kick flip and drives the woman to her knees, holding her saber to her throat. The woman has close cropped blonde hair and icy eyes. Her lip is bleeding.

_Kill her_ , a voice inside Rey hisses. _Kill her for all the activities she’s complicit in, for everything she’s done to Finn, she_ deserves _it-_

“Rey.”

Rey stills at the sound of her mother’s voice behind her. 

“I know what you’re thinking.” Jade approaches until she stands next to her. Rey can hear her blade hissing and humming. “And believe me, I would do it, too. But not in anger. Not in rage. Not like you want to.” Jade flicks dispassionate eyes over Phasma. “Kill her later, when you do so in battle. Not because you wish to give in to the rage within you.”

Rey stands still. Then she turns her saber off and knocks Phasma out. “Let’s go.”

 

They don’t speak until they’re in lightspeed, after Rey has given her the co-ordinates to Arorua, the current location of the Resistance. 

“Here,” Jade says, quietly handing her some towels. Rey starts rubbing at her face to try and get all of the wet off and moves to her hair. “Um.” Jade starts slightly. “Can I?”

“Oh. Er. Yeah, of course.”

Jade starts drying off her hair, gentle but firm.

“When did you realize?”

Rey swallows. “You called yourself Mara. That was when I knew. Luke said that was my mother’s name.”

“Luke.” Jade’s hands still. “You found him.”

“Yeah.”

Jade drops the towel next to the sitting Rey and kneels in front of her. She puts soft hands on either side of her face and gazes into her eyes.

“I see you,” she whispers. “You were so little when we said goodbye. But I see you now. I’m so sorry I didn’t before.”

“It’s okay.” Rey covers her mother’s hands with her own. “How could you have known?”

“I did what I thought was right.” Jade’s eyes are pleading. “I just wanted you to be okay.”

“I know you did. I told you. I’m working on it.” Rey squeezes her mother’s hands slightly. “Will you come back to the Resistance with me? I know you don’t really want to fight, but there’s probably jobs there where-“

“Yes,” Jade interrupts. “Yes. That would be nice.”

“What do I call you?”

“I think…” Jade hesitates. “I think for now… if Mara’s okay with you? I haven’t been a mom in a while.”

Rey nods, feeling their intertwined hands shift on her cheeks. “Mara’s just fine.”

 

The heavy feeling dissipates for a little while. They talk about ships, and the Jedi, and the strange little quirks of Luke’s they’ve noticed. The heavy feeling only resurfaces when they pull into Aroruan space. Mara’s brow draws together and she looks almost worried.

“It’ll be okay,” Rey reassures her. She tentatively takes her mother’s hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not. I don’t worry. I just…” she takes a deep breath. “Maybe you go first?”

“Okay.”

Rey descends the ramp to see her aunt, uncle, father, Finn, Poe, and BB-8 waiting for her. Rey holds up the data stick. 

“I’ve got it.”

Leia smiles. “You’re all right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” 

“Ha,” Han says smugly. “Your father’s hair job got undone. Knew it.”

Luke doesn’t rise to the jibe, forehead creased. “Do you have someone with you? Who is…” he trails off, looking behind Rey. Rey turns around to see Mara descending hesitantly, step faltering when she sees Luke.

“Oh,” Luke whispers.

“Hi, farmboy,” she calls, voice surprisingly strong. “Been a while.” Her lips twitch. “Should’ve known our kid would be taller than you.”

Everyone’s eyes snap to Rey. She ignores them, watching her father as he steps forwards shakily.

“Mara,” he breathes and just like that, Mara’s bravado is gone. She walks very quickly until she is before Luke, and then she wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. Luke clings to her, one hand in her hair, stroking it dazedly.

“We have a daughter,” she whispers.

“I know.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“I know.”

“Rey,” Finn whispers. “That’s your-“

“Yes.”

“You’re always coming home with new family members,” Poe mumbles. Rey smiles slightly, stepping on Poe’s foot a little. Luke gestures to Rey.

“Come here, Rey.”

Rey is pulled into the hug. The hug is a first for her, a first she can remember, anyhow. Mother, father, and daughter, all clutching each other, like perhaps if they just hold on tight enough, together they can take on the galaxy.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, we meet Mara Jade! I hope I did her some justice.
> 
> I have a tumblr now! Here, if anyone's interested: http://cosmicoceanfic.tumblr.com/
> 
> Rey's hair (as done by Luke): http://40.media.tumblr.com/cea5565f810f5e11116fb5c9fba48d29/tumblr_nvrv06QfLh1urzd83o1_1280.jpg  
> Rey's hair (as done by Rey): http://40.media.tumblr.com/cdcb2cd3e0447a2570c2803a52ca18f1/tumblr_nr6ah5AM7o1urzd83o2_400.jpg  
> Rey's cloak: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3f/fe/dc/3ffedc392921b08d051e3ed16c375dd9.jpg  
> Rey's clothes: http://40.media.tumblr.com/db01bd71b4ea2fbf884be973655f12fc/tumblr_o3hwymzVRb1un9u1mo1_500.jpg
> 
> Mara's hair: http://40.media.tumblr.com/1d5c67fb2abddeb91472c0ae1c254590/tumblr_njbvfzHiMU1un9u1mo1_500.jpg  
> Mara's coat: https://cdna.lystit.com/photos/2013/12/03/burberry-dark-malt-long-bonded-cotton-trench-coat-with-studded-undercollar-product-1-15766339-027322110.jpeg  
> Mara's outfit: http://41.media.tumblr.com/fc4b58cef4609a31dbb83f722b08d4d3/tumblr_nx0aqvvxyV1un9u1mo1_1280.jpg


End file.
